Quiller Balalaika

'It's one of -'

'Get down low.'

She dropped forward, holding her face in her hands, and I waited for the shots because this could be a hit set up for someone else, someone who was expected to arrive at No. 1183 at precisely this time, someone Sakkas wanted out of his way.

I kept on a straight course, accelerating a little and hearing the chains searching for traction; if I did a U-turn and tried to get out as fast as I could there'd be shots anyway: mere suspicion would be a good enough excuse in the mind of the mafiya.

'Stay down,' I told Antanova as the headlights came blazing through the snow directly at the Mercedes and then swung and went past and I felt the gross impact of the shots as the brain gave way to illusion, then there was only the white tunnel of our own lights ahead of us through the blizzard and I told Antanova she could straighten up.

'It was one of Vasyl's security units?'

She nodded, tightening her seat-belt, staring ahead.

'How many are there?'

'Several cars.' Blowing into a small embroidered handkerchief. 'They're always in the street.'

'And behind the house?'

'Of course. Everywhere.' Her face turned to watch me. 'You didn't notice them before?'

'When I came to the house? It was in daylight, and he'd sent a car for me.' Security units standing off and guards, for certain, at the gates: Sakkas territory, keep out. I'd memorized the number of the house but it was clear enough now that I'd have no hope of surveillancing it, even by night.

'You want to stay with friends?' I asked Antanova.

'Friends? No. I must go back there soon.'

'You want to drive around for a while?'

'No. Take me to the Entre'acte.' Turning to me: 'Do you have time?'

'All the time you need. That's a club?'

'Yes.'

'Where is it?'

She gave me the directions and I turned away from the Ring and headed south; in blizzard conditions it would take fifteen minutes, twenty.

'You can leave me there,' she said, 'and I'll get someone to take me to the house later.' Didn't say 'home'.

'Vasyl's coming in by air?'

'Yes.'

'They'll have cancelled the flight, of course.'

'He'll be in his own 747.'

'Even so, he can't land until this clears and they've opened up the runways again.'

'But I must go back there soon, anyway, or they'll report me.'

'His guards?'

'His aides.'

She wasn't withholding anything, even from a stranger; either she assumed I knew what the relationship was or she just didn't care, just needed to talk, to share her misery.

I asked her: 'Tell me exactly when you've got to be back there.' For her safety's sake I didn't want her to be late.

'By midnight.'

The clock on the instrument panel showed 10:31. 'That's your curfew?'

In a moment, disliking the word. 'It's when I need to be back. You should turn left at the next intersection. If you like you can drop me off at the taxi rank outside the Romanov Palace.'

'No, I'll see you to the club. Are you warm enough?'

'Yes.'

Not strictly true, even though the heater was switched to full fan; she was frozen, crouched beside me with her small body rigid, frozen with cold, frozen with fear as the snow drove against the windscreen in blinding gusts and the illuminated clock flicked to 10:32, another minute nearer midnight.

'So why don't you leave him?'

'I can't.'

She said it impatiently, as if I should have known. Did she expect everybody to know everything about her life with Sakkas? Did he parade her through the clubs of Moscow as his beautiful, talented white slave? It was an important question, because all I knew about him was that he liked his privacy, was a reserved, remote and ruthless entrepreneur operating from his winter fortress in the capital of the new Russia, unassailable because of his ability to control the very centre of Moscow's crime network. Most of this was in the briefing; some of it I'd picked up on my way into the mission, a lean dog hungry for scraps. But I'd found no kind of Achilles heel in the man, though now I thought it might lie here, in his relationship with Natalya Antanova, and this could give me something to work on, even,a chance of closing in on him.

'Why can't you leave him?' I asked her.

She looked down, then up again, but not at me, looking around her in the half-dark: the only light was from candles burning in Tiffany glass bowls on the little tables, so that the scene was a kaleidoscope of fragmented images – the bright outlines of bottles, the sheen of bare shoulders, the glimmer of eyes in shadowed faces, some of them turned to watch Antanova. They seemed to be mostly artists here, gathered together with friends after curtain-down to bemoan their performances and seek the comfort of immediate rebuttal – but darling, you were marvellous!

'I can't leave Vasyl,' Natalya said, her eyes on me now, 'because he would have my brother killed.'

The man in the corner near the bar was one of the people watching her; I'd locked on to him when he'd come in here, less than a minute after we had. He could be an admirer, like the others, or could be simply standing there with one foot hooked over the bar stool enjoying his lust at a distance. Or he could be one of Sakkas' henchmen.

'Tell me,' I asked Natalya, 'about your brother.'

She countered this. 'How long have you known Vasyl?'

'Only a few weeks. We just did one brief deal.'

'You will do other deals with him?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'He doesn't leave much room for profit. And of course one can't protest.' I gave it a beat. 'He hasn't got my confidence, and I certainly don't have his. You can speak freely.'

Her dark eyes were glistening. 'There are so few things I can do freely, and that is why I've told you as much as I have, even -' she shrugged, and the small silver bells on the fringe of her stole shivered with sound.

'Even though I'm a stranger.'

'Yes.'

'Don't let it worry you.'

Taking a breath she said, 'My brother – his name is Marius – was with Vasyl almost from the time he came out here from England. You know Vasyl is a British national?'

'So I gathered.'

'My brother was already in the mafiya, and introduced him to all the right people. He -'

'The right people in the mafiya, or the government?'

'Both. Vasyl impressed him enormously, as he does everyone, and in a short time Marius was offered what he called the "honour" of becoming his chief aide. I didn't know Vasyl then; I only knew that Marius was getting in deep with the organization and making enormous money.' With a shrug: 'It didn't worry me; Moscow was changing overnight, the streets filling with Mercedes and Lincolns and Ferraris, new clubs opening up, Western clothes and cosmetics and music flooding in. But then the killings began, and the ordinary people of the city were given an idea of how ugly the mafiya was, behind all the opulent extravaganza. And I started worrying about my brother.' Taking another deep breath, 'And then about a year ago, last winter, he introduced me to Vasyl Sakkas at a very exclusive party.'